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Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Some of you may know that I will soon be moving to the US for my job. And since I want to host Thanksgiving next year at my place (wherever that will end up being), I decided I should practice a staple: the cranberry sauce.

Unfortunately, I was the victim of what is commonly known as a rookie mistake: I overcooked it!

As a result, my sauce was absolutely beautiful, but horribly bitter and totally inedible!

Some of you may know that a couple of months ago, I went to Norway and Sweden for a few days. I came back from there with quite a few delicacies such as Geitost, Flädersläktet (Elderflower) jelly, Wasa crackers (of course) and smoked moose ham.

A few weeks ago, I decided to use the smoked moose, since the peremption date was approaching.

With that in mind, I improvised a pasta casserole with a Chasseur-like sauce.

I do not recall the exact recipe, as I pretty much went along with the flow, but it went a little something like that:

fry the smoked moose in a bit of butter, until slightly crispy. Put aside on a plate.

in the same pan, fry a finely diced onion (I would have used a shallot if I had had one in stead) in a little bit of butter, until golden, but not too brown.

add a few sliced rehydrated porcini (of which you will have kept the water)

add the meat to the pan, and flame with a little cap of Gin (the original smoked reindeer stew recipe I was inspired from contained juniper berries, which I did not have). NOTE: if you flame food, shut down air aspiration! and be very careful with your hair, brows and lashes! ;)

add a couple of handfuls of spinach leaves (I used frozen spinach, that I thawed completely beforehand, and pressed all the water out of), add the water used to rehydrate the porcini mushrooms and cook until spinach is warm and tender.

add a dollop of sour cream on top, a little black pepper and salt to taste.NOTE: the smoked meat may be very salted, so be gentle with the salt!

Christmas is by far my favorite holiday of the year. I just love everything that is remotely related to Christmas, the presents, mistletoe, holly, fragrant trees and decorations!

Inspired by an Austrian friend of mine, Bianca, I decided to bake Christmas cookies. Being french, I opted for an Alsacian recipe (lemon scented cookies); but because I have lived in the Netherlands for over five years now, I tweaked the recipe by adding Speculaas spices in the mix! Enjoy!

05 December 2009

Ingredients (makes about 15 cookies)

For the cookies:

250g flour

1/2 pack of baking powder

70g icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 pinch of salt

1/2 tsp of Speculaas spices

zest of 1 lemon, finely ground

1 egg yolk (use the white for the icing, see below)

2 tbsp of creme fraiche (thick cream)

100g butter, cubed

For the icing:

125 g icing sugar

1 egg white

2 tbsp lemon juice

Pre-warm the oven at 180°C.

Mix the flour and baking powder in a bowl. Add the sugar, spices, vanilla extract, salt, lemon zest, egg yolk and creme fraiche. Stir thoroughly, and incorporate the butter. Knead well; you should have a nice smooth dough (albeit a little crumbly).

Roll the dough on a flat surface, to a thickness of ~1/2 cm. With cookie-cutters (I used heart-, star-, flower-, tree- and angel-shaped ones), cut out the dough in as many cookies as you can. If there is leftover dough, make a ball out of it, and roll it down again until all the dough hass been cut out.

Place the cut-out dough on a baking paper sheet, and bake for ~15 minutes. Once cooked, let the cookies cool down completely before icing them.

When the cookies are cool, mix all the ingredients of the icing, until you obtain a thick white smooth paste. Ice your cookies with a spoon, using the back of the spoon to smooth the icing. Apply as many coats of sugar icing as you please (I used three coats). Let the icing dry completely before manipulating the cookies.

- Put the meat and the "cloved" onion in a large pan, and cover with cold water. Add some salt, and bring slowly to a boil. Simmer for 30 minutes and remove the froth that will form at the surface.

- Meanwhile, peal the carrots, and cut them in big chunks. Wash the leeks, and tie them together with the bayleaf and thyme. Add everything to the boiling meat, as well as the 10 pepper corns. Cover and simmer for 1 hour.

- Peel the small onions, and cook them for 10 minutes in salted boiling water.

- Clean the mushrooms, and cut them in half (or quarts, depending on the size). Sauté them in a pan with a little butter. Salt, and put aside.

- Strain the meat and vegetables, but filter and keep the broth. You will need 50cl of the broth to make the sauce, but put the rest inthe fridge; it will be useful when you want to heat up the leftovers.

- Melt the 60 g butter in a pan. Add the flour and cook for 1 minute on medium heat. Add the filtered broth progressively, stirring continously until the sauce is smooth. Cook for a few minutes until the sauce thickens.

- Add the meat and vegetables to the sauce again (after removing the string from the leeks), and heat gently.

- Just before serving, add the egg yolk to the crème fraiche, and stir the mixture into the dish.